“Where are they?” muttered Chau. “We can’t fight what we can’t see.”

  “The HF needs to fix our night vision so it detects these things,” said Diaz. “And maybe give us magazines filled with exploding slugs.”

  Explosive gauss slugs existed within the Human Federation, Grisham knew, but he couldn’t ever remember a soldier who’d been issued with them. He guessed explosive shots were expensive to manufacture. Maybe that was the reason they weren’t in widespread use, or maybe there was a technical flaw he didn’t know about.

  Another five minutes passed and Grisham made his way through the soldiers to the front of the vehicle. Once there, he stood next to Private Lyles, who was looking west as if she believed her eyes could penetrate the absolute darkness beyond the moving puddle of light. Nearby, Commander Deneuve was crouched over the vehicle’s access panel. For whatever reason, the Kijol had designed the controls so the shuttle would come to a halt if a specific button wasn’t held in constantly.

  “This is a pain in the ass and no mistake,” said Deneuve.

  Grisham was about to answer when he saw movement ahead. It was a corpse and it was running directly for the shuttle. The speed of the vehicle was such that Grisham hardly had time to shout a warning and raise his gun. Private Lyles shot first and the corpse was punched off its feet. A moment later, it was dragged beneath the cargo shuttle and that was the last Grisham saw of it.

  “Where there’s one…,” said Lyles.

  The attack was a terrible development, since it meant the enemy was in front as well as behind, and Grisham wondered if this was why the aliens had stayed in the shadows. They had other tools at their disposal.

  “Slow this shuttle, Commander Deneuve,” Maxwell instructed. He’d been positioned near the back, but now he headed to the front. “We need more time to react.”

  “Slowing us to half,” said Deneuve.

  Thirty kilometres per hour seemed like not much more than a crawl and Grisham cursed inwardly, even though reducing speed was the right choice. Another corpse sprinted into the light and he fired at it. Maxwell, Lyles and Chau also fired. The corpse went down and disappeared beneath the cargo shuttle, the same as the first.

  “Didn’t even feel a bump,” said Lyles.

  A third corpse charged at the shuttle and then a fourth. Suddenly, the trickle became a flood and the passage was crowded with bodies. These sorry creatures were pallid and rotten and each wore the torn remnants of a Kijol spacesuit. Grisham could clearly see the savage cuts which had taken their lives, though the blood was long since dried.

  He fired into the pack as fast as he could pull the trigger. Maxwell, Lyles and Chau each dropped to one knee so that the soldiers behind could fire unhindered over their heads. Grisham did likewise.

  “I’m reducing speed again,” said Deneuve, slowing the shuttle to twenty kilometres per hour.

  The new, lower speed was both too slow and too fast at the same time. Anything following would have an easy job catching up, while at the same time, the shuttle was still heading so rapidly into the corpses ahead that it was near impossible to cut them all down.

  Despite the best efforts of the soldiers, several of the corpses were able to hurl themselves onto the edge of the flatbed and they scrabbled against the hard surface as they desperately tried to climb up. Grisham changed aim, and shot the dead Kijol that was about to make it onto the shuttle. His bullet struck it in the head and it slipped under the vehicle. When Grisham looked up again, the tunnel was even more crowded than before.

  “Private Vaughan, we need that repeater at the front,” said Maxwell.

  “There’s something coming up behind us, sir,” said Vaughan. “I think it’s one of those aliens.”

  “Damnit! Shoot it then!” snarled Maxwell.

  The XR repeater droned for a couple of seconds. “It’s not running straight, Sergeant, and it’s staying beyond the light.”

  “Rocket out,” said Lowe.

  The detonation lit up the tunnel and the colours became even harsher than before. Heat from the blast was channelled along the passage and the booming of the explosion was made deeper by the confined space.

  “Did you hit it, Private?” asked Maxwell tightly.

  “I hit it, sir,” said Lowe. “I think the bastard was ready for me. It sprang from the right of the tunnel to the left just as I fired and it took cover behind the shuttle gravity rail.”

  “Does that mean it isn’t dead?”

  “I don’t think it’s dead, Sergeant,” said Lowe. “It’s alight though and it’s dropping back.”

  “Am I bringing this XR up front, sir?” asked Vaughan.

  “Hold for the moment. If those aliens are following us, I’d rather we had that repeater aimed their way.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Throughout the short conversation, Grisham kept firing into the corpses ahead of the shuttle. They showed no sign of thinning and his magazine readout hit zero.

  “Reloading,” he said.

  Grisham managed the pressure magazine change without error and began shooting again. “Sergeant Maxwell, I wonder if slowing down is the wrong move,” he said, putting two bullets into the chest of a corpse. A second enemy leapt towards him from the floor, but it struck the leading edge of the cargo shuttle and fell backwards, to be crushed beneath the vehicle. “Our guns aren’t enough. Maybe if we had enough speed, we’d force our way through.”

  “What we’re doing isn’t working,” said Maxwell. “So let’s give it a try.”

  “Increasing speed,” said Deneuve.

  The acceleration was steady, but strong enough that Grisham felt the need to widen his stance to maintain balance. As the combined speed of the shuttle and the onrushing corpses increased, it became harder to reliably shoot the enemy. However, the dead were crowded together and they fouled each other’s attempts to jump onto the flatbed. As the vehicle approached its maximum speed, it thudded constantly into bodies.

  A few of the corpses – those approaching along the adjacent U-shaped rail used to transport the missiles – jumped towards the shuttle at an angle. When their attempts to leap onboard failed, they rolled away and were lost in the darkness behind. Still, these ones presented more of a problem, since their flailing arms stood a chance of knocking a soldier from the vehicle, and that would mean certain death.

  Maxwell wasn’t blind to the risks and he directed the soldiers to concentrate their fire towards the attackers in the left-hand side of the tunnel.

  “What’s happening behind?” he asked.

  “No visible movement, Sergeant,” said Corporal Fine. “Except for the corpses we’re riding over.”

  “I’m not convinced those aliens have given up,” said Maxwell.

  For many grim seconds, Grisham and the soldiers fired into the onrushing bodies. The eyes of the enemy were empty, though their features were strangely twisted as if the memories of anger controlled their decaying muscles.

  Grisham was confronted by the realisation that he felt more sympathy for the Kijol in death than he did for them when they were alive. They’d been slaughtered without mercy and their bodies turned into weapons by their enemy. It was the ultimate disrespect and Grisham’s simmering anger increased his focus. Each shot struck unerringly and his opponents fell.

  “This sucks,” said Lyles. She glanced at her magazine readout. “Reloading.”

  “Still nothing coming our way from behind,” said Fine.

  “Private Vaughan, move up,” said Maxwell.

  “Yes, sir. On my way.”

  The soldier repositioned so that his repeater was deployed on the forward left-hand corner of the shuttle. As soon as he was in place, he fired the gun at an angle towards the missile transport rail. The XR’s bullets tore into the Kijol dead and its penetrative strength was enough that many of the shots destroyed two or three corpses in one go. Pieces of ragged flesh sprayed into the air and the enemy were thrown from their feet in great numbers. The pressure on the soldiers at the front lessened at once.

  Suddenly, the corpses thinned out and a few seconds later, no more came charging at the shuttle.

  “That’s the last of them,” said Maxwell.

  Grisham did some very loose workings in his head. “If these corpses were brought to their feet at the same time as those in the stairwell, they can’t have travelled far.”

  “If they’d been stashed in the surface-to-air battery at the end of this tunnel, we must be near our destination,” said Maxwell.

  “That’s what I’m hoping,” said Grisham.

  “I’ll slow this shuttle again,” said Deneuve. “Death by wall impact isn’t high on my list of preferred ways to go.”

  She reduced speed to forty kilometres per hour and everyone at the front of the vehicle stared anxiously west, in case the tunnel came to an abrupt end. Grisham knew how good Deneuve’s reactions were and he had no concern. Even so, he stared west like the others, eager to find out what lay ahead.

  “How’re things at the back?” asked Maxwell tightly.

  “Still nothing, sir,” said Fine.

  The end of the tunnel came into sight and it looked as if the rail for the cargo shuttle terminated in a loading station.

  “Reducing speed,” said Deneuve, slowing the vehicle as fast as she dared.

  The shuttle entered the loading station, which was in darkness and separated from the missile loading rail by an alloy wall. Deneuve brought the vehicle to a halt. The only way off was onto a ten-metre-wide platform to the north. A cargo tunnel led away into a storage area, which the flashlight beams were insufficient to illuminate. Grisham saw crates and some other shapes which he wasn’t interested in exploring further.

  A personnel exit also led north, up some steps which climbed out of the light.

  “No door on the way in,” said Maxwell. “Let’s hope there’s one at the top of these steps.”

  “How long until the surviving corpses come back?” asked Chau.

  “Five minutes at the most,” said Grisham. “I don’t think there’s any doubt they’ll be coming our way.”

  “Let’s get moving,” said Maxwell.

  The soldier entered the stairwell and Grisham followed, wondering what the hell this mission had in store for him next.

  TWENTY-THREE

  The stairwell was too narrow for two people to walk abreast and the mission personnel ascended single file. The steps were steep and they climbed for two hundred metres. By the time he reached the top, the muscles in Grisham’s legs were complaining. A door blocked the way, and it looked identical to the one leading to the corpse-choked stairwell, with the same two handles for operation.

  “Let’s get this open,” said Maxwell, pushing the handles up.

  The door opened soundlessly. Maxwell shone his light beam into the space beyond and then entered.

  Coming after, Grisham emerged into a compact room that was barely large enough to accommodate everyone on the mission. Exits led west and north, both of which turned out of sight a short way along. He opened the filter on his suit helmet and drew the air in through his nostrils.

  “It doesn’t smell of corpses in here,” Grisham said. “Those bodies must have been stored elsewhere.” He turned his attention to the door. “Is there a way to lock it?” he asked.

  “Not that I can see,” said Maxwell. He pointed at the access panel on the alloy-clad wall. “The power’s off to the local security system.”

  “If I hadn’t been recently shot down by a missile coming from one of these batteries, I’d be asking myself if the power was off to everything else as well,” said Grisham.

  “Only some of the launchers may be operational, sir,” said Deneuve.

  “Not much we can do about that, Commander,” said Grisham. “Circumstances have brought us here. It isn’t like we had a choice in the matter.”

  “Private Chau, can you seal this door?” asked Maxwell, swinging it closed and pulling down the locking handles. “Before a thousand stinking corpses try to break through from the other side.”

  “Yes, sir, I can seal it,” said Chau. “However, if this missile battery can also be accessed through the missile loading tube and a bunch of aliens and corpses start chasing us again, we might want to exit this way later.”

  “It’s a chance I’m willing to take,” said Maxwell. “I want this door to stay shut.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Chau. He reached into his leg pocket and extracted three finger-sized blue cylinders. “If those corpses are coming fast, the alloys might not have enough time to harden.” He attached the charges along the vertical seam. “Five metres should be plenty distance for these ones.”

  The soldiers were already heading along the two exit tunnels, with Grisham going west to find out what was along that way. Fifteen metres from the room, the passage turned south and ended at a closed door with the same two locking handles as elsewhere.

  “I’m setting these charges off,” said Chau. “We should hold the door locked for a few minutes.”

  The explosives produced a fizzing sound and that was the extent of the drama. Maxwell, once he’d reported another closed door along the north passage, ordered three of the soldiers to help him hold the locking bars in the down position. Having seen the way the bars had been snapped from the doors in the room leading to the stairwell, nobody was under any illusions what would happen if one of those aliens decided to gain entry before the melted alloys had fully hardened. If a couple of corpses – the maximum which would be able to apply pressure to the handles from the tight stairwell - tried to force entry, it would be a different story.

  Grisham didn’t go all the way back to the entrance room and only returned far enough along the western passage that he could see the orange-glowing seam on the door. Maxwell, Franklin, Vaughan and Chau were all hanging from the ends of the bars farthest from the heat.

  “I’m going to check through this door west, Sergeant,” Grisham said.

  “Yes, sir,” said Maxwell. “We need to explore this place and secure it as best we can.”

  Corporal Fine accompanied Grisham, along with Private Diaz and Commander Deneuve. Corporal Barkley and a couple of others went north to discover what was to be found that way.

  “Ready?” asked Grisham, stopping at the door. He couldn’t hold his gun and operate the levers at the same time, so he slung his rifle.

  “Ready,” Fine confirmed.

  Grisham bent his knees, placed one hand on each of the levers and then straightened. The mechanism was smooth like it was on the stairwell door and the locks disengaged. He pushed with his shoulder and the door opened.

  “Control station,” said Grisham, sweeping his flashlight beam around the room. Two consoles faced an enormous screen on the opposite wall. Everything was dark. “Shit, no power,” he said. “We can’t do a damned thing without power.”

  “There’s something pushing on these handles,” said Maxwell on the comms. He grunted with effort. “And I don’t think it’s the pizza delivery guy.”

  The corpses which had survived the destructive passage of the cargo shuttle had returned to the missile battery and their alien master was likely somewhere close by. Grisham cursed his opponents and strode into the control room to see if he could bring the Kijol hardware to life. Another exit led west. “Corporal Fine, you search that way,” he said. “I’ll see if these consoles will power up.”

  Fine hesitated. “The squad and I – we’ve been to places like this before,” she said. “Not missile batteries, but other installations that were designed to operate independently. Those other places had backup generators that required a manual switchover.”

  “Any idea what we’re looking for to activate the switchover?” asked Grisham. “Or where it might be found?” He’d already stabbed his finger at a half-dozen buttons on the left-hand console and it showed no sign of waking up.

  “The couple of times we were required to bring the power online, the way of doing it was nothing cleverer than pulling a switch in the wall,” said Fine. “Maybe that’s why they call it a switchover.” She shrugged. “On those occasions we found the switch at the lowest level of the facility.”

  “Then let’s look for a way down,” said Grisham, uncomfortably aware that the Kijol corpses had almost certainly been stored somewhere beneath this control room. “Corporal Barkley, are you hearing this?”

  “Yes, sir. I remember those places Corporal Fine was telling you about. The room I’m in here has exits and some steps, but those steps lead upwards. They go a long way.”

  “There’ll be a way out to the surface eventually,” said Grisham.

  “We should hold until Private Chau is confident the door is secure, sir,” said Fine. “Sergeant Maxwell has a good routine for sweeping through places like this.”

  Grisham nodded, but his gaze remained on the western exit from the control room, where the passage came to an intersection about fifteen metres away.

  While he’d never been inside a Kijol surface-to-air battery before, he knew how the enemy constructed the missile clusters they used in their warships. Six missiles had been launched at the Marauder, and Grisham was sure every one of the Ovintus surface batteries would have the same capabilities. That meant there’d be a total of six vertical launch tubes and their loading mechanisms would be right at the bottom.

  “I reckon this passage leads around the central launch tubes,” said Grisham, pointing along the tunnel. “But the lowest levels of this battery could be much further below the ground.”

  “If that’s the case, we’ll have to keep going until we find what we’re looking for,” said Fine.

  Grisham didn’t want to wait, but he knew that setting off now would be irrational. That didn’t stop him heading to the intersection. North, the passage ended at a door. South, it went out of sight west around a corner. Grisham gripped his rifle tighter. The temptation to explore a little further was hard to resist.

  Instead of heading off on his own, Grisham returned to the control room. He arrived, just as Private Chau declared that the entrance door was secure. Maxwell had been listening to the comms and he came straight to the control room.